December Social Media Round Up

Check out our round-up of the biggest changes in social media and digital marketing from the last month. Let us do the work for you, we gather the updates, you reap the benefit of having all of them in one place!

We read all of the latest social media news so you don’t have to.

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The top news in social media that we covered this month includes:

Facebook

Facebook is testing real-time status comments. Users will now be able to see if someone is typing a comment by the display of an ellipsis similar to what is seen on Messenger. Facebook feels that this will increase engagement. The goal is to keep you aware of the status of the conversation, and whether the other person intends to reply.

Facebook is testing a search option to find local services with reviews! Sounds a lot like something we know….Yelp. This is Facebook’s way of helping you to find businesses around you along with ratings and recommendations on where to go. This will make it easier for customers to find you but it also makes it even more imperative to make sure that the business’ contact information on Facebook is up to date and that reviews are being monitored to make sure they are responded to accordingly.

Facebook tests live video and collages: Could this be Facebook’s response to Periscope and Meerkat? From your status update you will have the ability to live stream video that you would like to share and include a description. During the broadcast, you’ll be able to see engagement and at the end of your broadcast, the video will be saved on your timeline. There is also an option for users to subscribe so that they are notified the next time you live stream. If you’re not ready to dive into Periscope, Meerkat or other live streaming apps, maybe consider testing out this new feature to see what you can share and the type of engagement you receive.

Twitter

Twitter updates the appearance of photos. Photos in the timeline will no longer be cropped; this will allow users to experience the pictures in the way that they were meant to be seen. Once again, social networks are realizing the importance of visual content and how it engages with users more than anything else.

Twitter…beginning to base tweet order off of quality rather than time posted.In their attempt to show you the most relevant and most important things happening, this may mean deviating from the norm of displaying tweets in chronological order. This further supports the importance of having killer content. Make sure you’re creating content that will interest your audience. This may mean a different approach on different networks.

Parse.ly shared an end-of-year survey to understand the state of the digital media industry in 2015and discovered what challenges are expected in 2016. While digital publishers are confident in the overall success of the industry, 46% of respondents report having profited primarily through traditional advertising in 2015. This percentage is expected to drop in 2016 as efforts shift towards a combination of streams. This Report/Survey says Monetization will be Digital Media’s Biggest Challenge in 2016